Unions put big miners to the test

Rio Tinto
’s Bell Bay aluminium smelter and
BHP Billiton
’s Queensland coalmines will be the centre of an escalating national battle over workers’ bargaining rights, as unions try to rebuild their presence in the resources sector under Labor’s Fair Work rules.

The Australian Workers Union will push for a collective agreement at Bell Bay in northern Tasmania despite strong opposition from Rio, claiming that a year-long recruitment campaign has led to majority support for a union-negotiated ­collective deal.

AWU national secretary
Paul Howes
said the union would apply to Fair Work Australia for a majority support determination once it ­covered 70 per cent of the smelter’s 500-plus workers, in what was likely to be a lengthy fight.

“I hope I’m wrong, but I envisage a Cochlear-scenario developing down there," Mr Howes told The Australian Financial Review. “We’re in a strong position though . . . we’ve put enormous effort into the campaign."

The BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance hopes that talks starting on January 9 will break a bargaining deadlock at its Bowen Basin coalmines in Queensland, which have been hit by industrial action since mid-2011.

The two giant miners have even higher stakes resting on legal action by Rio next month to defend the legality of non-union collective workplace agreements at their massive Pilbara iron ore mines.

Rio will seek special leave from the High Court on February 10 to appeal a ruling that opened the door for unions to play an influential role in the Pilbara, despite representing only a small minority of the combined iron ore workforce of about 20,000.

The Federal Court ruled last year that a non-union collective agreement covering thousands of workers at Rio’s iron ore operations was invalid, casting doubt over the ­legality of a similar big agreement at BHP’s operations. Rio refused to comment before the High Court ­hearing.

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But a new round of bargaining conducted under the Fair Work Act would give unions a formal role to represent their members and raise the possibility of legally ­protected industrial action.

The president of Rio’s Pilbara operations, Greg Lilleyman, told staff last year that the legal action was a “very serious step to take", and was needed to ensure certainty for individual employees and “certainty for the business more generally".

Rio declined to comment on the looming struggle at Bell Bay but said it paid $50 million in a salaries a year, while spending $180 million a year on goods and services from 400 local businesses.

“Rio Tinto respects the decision made by our employees to choose to belong, or not belong, to a union," Rio spokesman Bruce Tobin said.

“We have a full range of employment arrangements across our sites in Australia."

BHP Billiton spokeswoman Kelly Quirke said the company had sought legal advice on the relevance of the Rio court case to its own operations.

“We have a range of agreements in place in our Pilbara operations and this decision of the High Court potentially impacts one of these agreements," she said.

The mining giants introduced non-union collective deals in the Pilbara that originally covered a small number of new employees hired after a particular date but now cover thousands of employees.

The aim was to find an employment deal that mostly side-lined unions during the bargaining and would replace Australian workplace agreements once the Labor government banned the issuing of new AWAs from 2008. The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) will oppose Rio being granted leave to appeal the decision, arguing that a Full Bench of the Federal Court unanimously ruled against a workplace agreement being defined on temporal grounds, based on when an employee was hired.

Rio was advised on the Pilbara arrangements by law firm Freehills and similar arrangement are believed to be in place at a number of smaller metalliferous miners, which have mostly been non-unionised for about 20 years.

This contrasts with coalmining, where the CFMEU has a strong coverage at many major east coat mines.

The union has been locked in an arm-wrestle at the BMA coalmines. The sticking points have mostly been on issues such as rosters and the use of contractors, rather than the quantum of pay rises in a highly profitable industry.

Officials from the CFMEU’s national office will join the new round of negotiations, but tensions have risen over a legal action by BMA that alleges that the union and some officials were involved in unprotected industrial action in early 2011.

The national president of the CFMEU’S mining and energy division,
Tony Maher
, said last month that the union stood by its opposition to “BHP’s sneaky backdoor attempt to introduce 14-hour shifts in its central Queensland coalmines, via a revised ‘fatigue management plan’."

The Australian Mines and Metals Association has argued that its members face a sharp rise in site visits by officials from multiple unions amid a trend of increasing working time being lost to industrial disputes.

AMMA chief executive Steve Knott said the Fair Work laws gave unions a “monopoly" on negotiating agreements for new projects, which had led to cost blowouts and delays on major projects, and wage increases of 40 per cent in the past 12 months. Mr Knott said the review of the Fair Work Act announced by the federal government late last year and due to be completed by the end of May this year was timely because a large number of resource employers were yet to enter into bargaining under the new laws.

“The review panel should also consider how the demands for wages and conditions being met, due to a union monopoly on agreement making, are beginning to flow on and impact other sectors," he said.

“The intention behind the Fair Work law was to keep strikes to a minimum and, with this clearly failing, the circumstances in which strike action can be legally taken must be reviewed and modified to ensure strike action is a last resort in any negotiation."

Bionic ear maker
Cochlear
is taking legal action against unions after the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union applied to Fair Work Australia for bargaining orders against the company.

The union is claiming the company’s refusal to negotiate a collective agreement for its workers breaches the Fair Work Act.